October 14- 15, 2016 Kutaisi, Georgia

 Organized by:

ATSU Foreign Affairs and Development Office, Prof. Vakhtang  Amaglobeli Center for American Studies & John Dos Passos Association of Georgia.

 Supporters:

US Embassy in Georgia & Akaki Tsereteli State University

We invite a variety of contributions that address any of the following topics:

• U.S. Literature
• U.S. Education System
• U.S. Culture
• Art
• Philosophy
• Mass Media
• Social and Women’s Issues
• U.S. History
• U.S. Politics
• Religion
• Law
• Economics
• Healthcare
• Ecology
• Georgian-American Relations

Working Languages: Georgian and English

 Style guides for papers:

Conference proceedings will be published as a journal. Manuscripts should not ordinarily exceed fifteen standard pages (A4) including the abstract and the contributor’s short bio. All papers must conform to The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition in all matters of form and should be typewritten in MS Word 2003. Use Times New Roman: 12 pts fonts for the main text and all additional parts except endnotes and index (where you should use 10 pts), and chapter headings (where you should use 16 pts). All text should be single-spaced.

Time Limit for Speakers: 15 minutes

Time Limit for Discussion: 5-7 minutes

Registration Fee:

$50 (including taxes).The registration fee will cover participation in the sessions and publication expenses.
Fees should be paid by wire transfer to the conference bank account.

THE SUBMISSION DEADLINE FOR THE REGISTRATION FORMS AND PROPOSALS IS:

September 10, 2016

Contact:          ATSU Foreign Affairs and Development Office

AkakiTsereteli State University

                        59Tamar Mepe St., 4600Kutaisi, Georgia

                        Tel.:    +995 431 245784

                        Fax :    +995 431 243833

E-mail:Malvina.Davituliani@atsu.edu.ge

dmalvina@hotmail.com

Contact Person:           Malvina Davituliani

The Irish Journal of American Studies is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal that publishes work on all areas related to American Studies.

The editorial committee now invites submissions for inclusion in a Special Issue of the journal on the work of Marilynne Robinson. To be published in Spring 2017, this Special Issue will explore the literary, historical, political, and religious contexts of Robinson’s writing, both fiction and non-fiction. Considering her role as a cultural figure and public intellectual in American society, this issue welcomes proposals on all aspects of Robinson’s writing.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be sent to the Editors at irishjournalofamericanstudies@gmail.com by 22 July 2016.

Successful contributors will be notified by 5 August 2016.

Completed drafts of essays will be expected by 1 December 2016.

All contributions will be subject to anonymous peer review.

Submissions should follow the 8th edition of the MLA style guide. Writers are asked to maximise the use of parenthetical citations, include a Works Cited list, and footnotes/endnotes should be avoided where practical. Articles should be no more than 6,000 words in length.

For more information on the Irish Journal of American Studies, and to read back issues, visit:

www.ijas.iaas.ie

International Symposium

October 19-20, 2017

École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Lyon (France)

Thoreau from across the pond

Organized by Julien Nègre (ENS de Lyon)

François Specq (ENS de Lyon)

and Laura Dassow Walls (University of Notre Dame)

Guest speakers (confirmed):

– Professor Branka Arsić (Columbia University)

– Professor William Rossi (University of Oregon)

In honor of Henry David Thoreau’s 200th birthday in 2017, this conference would like to interrogate the multiplicity of viewpoints from which he is read today. In recent years, Thoreau’s writings have been approached from a variety of perspectives: he has been envisioned as a poet and a philosopher, but also as a political thinker, a scientist of sorts, a surveyor, a lover of nature and an environmentalist. While these different perspectives complement each other to a certain extent, they also reveal how multifaceted his writings are, and how elusive his figure remains. Something resists in his texts, which is probably the surest sign of his ongoing relevance today.

The purpose of this conference is to confront these different readings and explore the issue of how we perceive and understand Thoreau today. The geographical separation between Concord and Lyon invites us to question the distance–temporal, intellectual, theoretical perhaps–between Thoreau and us. What does it mean to read Thoreau from across the pond, that is to say, in this case, from across the Atlantic, but also from the 21st century and from the frame of reference of our own modernity? In a journal entry from June 7, 1851, Thoreau playfully warns: “Keep your distance, do not infringe on the interval between us, and I will pick pick [sic] up lime & lay real terrestrial eggs for you, & let you know by cackling when I have done it.” What is the right “distance” to read Thoreau, then? What sort of theoretical tools, historiographic work of contextualization or biographical sources do we need to find the right “interval”? Thinking about Thoreau from across the pond also invites us to consider his inscription in American culture, both in his own time (through the study of his reception by his contemporaries) and in the way he has been perceived by several different generations of readers.

In 2009, scholars from around the world gathered in Lyon for the “Thoreauvian Modernities” conference, the first Thoreau event ever organized on this side of the Atlantic. That gathering led to important debates on Thoreau’s “modernity,” as evidenced by the multiple and sometimes divergent approaches displayed in the Thoreauvian Modernities volume (University of Georgia Press, 2013). Following up on these debates, the organizers of the present conference are interested in papers that illustrate and confront the variety of theoretical approaches and perspectives on Thoreau’s texts and his life. Participants might consider, but not necessarily limit themselves to the following topics:

– New approaches to Thoreau’s writings

– Thoreau’s texts and their inscription within the fields of philosophy, politics, science, environmental studies, etc.

– Thoreau’s life

– Thoreau’s network: his friends, relatives, correspondents, etc. and their influence on his thinking;

– Thoreau’s sources: the documents he used, read, owned, borrowed, annotated, etc.

– Thoreau’s reception by his contemporaries and until today.

To submit a proposal, please send an abstract (250-300 words) and a short CV to thoreau.lyon2017@ens-lyon.fr by September 15, 2016.

University of Southern Denmark, Odense, May 22-24, 2017
American Colors: Across the Disciplinary Spectrum
Second call for papers. Deadline: August 10, 2016

Color defines America. First of all color defines America through ideas of slavery, race, and civil rights. W.E.B. Du Bois’ claim that ‘The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line’ is certainly hard to deny in an American context. Yet American Colors are far from all about race. The respective colors of the Democratic and the Republican Party, since 1976 partitioning the country into demographics of blue and red, are significant reminders of the power of American Colors to divide and contrast. On the other hand, American Colors are not necessarily divisive, even if they stay distinct. Whether it is in the color of the rainbow, as seen on the pride flag of the LGBT community, or in the idea of ethnic and racial diversity, the notion of colors mixed as well as existing in diverse unison is key to the idea of America. To this, we can add shades of black and green too. On the one hand, modern America is constructed on, and by, ‘black gold’ (oil). On the other hand, it is precisely due to the success of motorized industry that the ‘green movement’ in its contemporary iteration had its beginnings in America, just as it is the yardstick of any contemporary debate on the gray matters of waste and pollution. As the largest consumer of energy worldwide and with the world’s largest ecological footprint, America is the extreme against which both local and global perspectives of all ‘green’ discourse must necessarily be measured.

Confirmed keynote speakers
Professor George Lipsitz, University of California, Santa Barbara, Department of Black Studies
Professor Scott Slovic, University of Idaho, English Department

Confirmed plenary speakers
ASANOR: Associate Professor Zeljka Svrljuga, University of Bergen, Department of Foreign Languages
DAAS: Professor David Nye, University of Southern Denmark, Center for American Studies,
FASA: Academy Research Fellow Rani-Henrik Andersson, Academy of Finland, University of Helsinki, Department of World Cultures
SAAS: Professor Danuta Fjellestad, Uppsala University, Department of English
The conference calls for—but is not limited to—workshop proposals and papers on American Colors of all kinds, from the color of music (e.g. Blues), to the dark corners of American Gothic and the red gore of American horror, on to the purchasing power of the mighty greenback dollar.

Papers are invited that address, but are not limited to, American Colors in
· American literature and American literary history

· History and historiography

· US politics

· US art, music, and popular culture

· Transnationalism

· Racial studies

· Gender studies

· Environmental Studies

· Sociology and social studies

· Representations of the US in cultural forms from other countries

· The study of Scandinavian-American connections

Please send proposals to brondal@sdu.dk by August 10, 2016. Proposals for individual panel presentations (between 15-20 minutes) should be no longer than 250 words; proposals for panels or workshops should be no longer than 500 words.
The conference is open to scholars and students from all over the world, but we offer lower registration fees to members of NAAS (Nordic Association for American Studies), EAAS (European Association for American Studies), and ASA (American Studies Association in the U.S).

For more information, visit the conference website here.

For more information, visit the conference website here.

A Celebration of the Life and Legacy of the New York Poet, 50 years on

When: Sunday, July 24^th, 2016; 11.00am – 8.00pm

Where: The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), The Mall, London, SW1Y 5AH

What: This one-day colloquium will bring together poets, academics and members of the public to celebrate the life, work and artistic connections of Frank O’Hara, the New York poet, art critic, film maker and curator (at MoMA) who died 50 years ago on July 25th, 1966.

The event is being organised by the North American Poetics Network of CHASE (Consortium for the Humanities and Arts South-East England) and will consist of 3 panels which will examine and discuss O’Hara’s legacy with members of the audience.  Keynote speakers include: Geoff Ward (Cambridge University), Daniel Kane (Sussex) and Redell Olsen (Royal Holloway, University of London)

There will be evening performances by contemporary poets whose work has been influenced and inspired by O’Hara: Andrea Brady, Prue Chamberlain, Kayo Chingonyi, Caitlin Docherty, Jeff Hilson, Sophie Robinson. Peter Gizzi and Anne Waldman will also contribute via Skype / Video.

Papers: Abstracts (~200 words) of papers (15 minutes) are now being sought.  We are especially keen for contributions that place and examine O’Hara’s work and legacy in the contexts of his myriad friendships, connections and artistic interests.  O’Hara was so much more than just a New York poet and we want the discussion of his life and work at this event to reflect this. So, although we are looking for informed and informative academic papers for the panel sessions, we would like these contributions to be pitched so as to encourage discussion and engagement with the audience (which will include members of the public as well as academics).  In keeping with O’Hara’s style and poetics, we are hoping for a colloquium that is open and generous, serious and witty, conversational in the best sense.  This will be the best way of celebrating O’Hara’s work and his legacy, 50 years on from the day before he died.

Note: A limited number of bursaries to help graduate students attend and / or contribute are available due to a grant from the British Association for American Studies. These will be distributed on a first come first served basis.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: Friday, May 27^th, 2016

Please email abstracts to: oharaconference@gmail.com

(Organising committee: Ben Hickman (Kent); Jordan Savage (Essex); Nick Selby (UEA); Steve Willey (Birkbeck))

2016 NASA Conference: American Studies after the Digital Turn

15-16 September 2016, Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg, The Netherlands

We live in an era of academic “turns”: cultural, linguistic, transnational. The “digital turn” is something different, and has raised possibilities and predicaments for scholarly work on the United States—especially for Americanists working outside of the United States. The increased availability of digitized material has cut across other turns in American Studies: it makes some work easier, other work more difficult; it outdates some scholarly modes and revives other scholarly modes. Seemingly stale inquiries into American myths and symbols might have a digital revival, while the global reach of the digital might make transnationalism and interdisciplinary research seem less revolutionary or revisionist than it seemed even a decade ago.

The “digital humanities” have already gone through several cycles of celebration and lament. This is a good moment to take stock. European Americanists are particularly well-positioned to discuss the impact of the digital, given their long experience with transnational and comparative inquiries in American Studies. Additionally, Americanists in Europe, in the course of teaching and researching the United States from a distance, might have different uses for digital tools than their peers in the U.S.

Our concerns in this conference are practical, theoretical, and polemical. We are interested in papers addressing Americanists’ use of digitized sources and tools. How do they use digital sources in their work? How do they combine the reading of texts with digital tools? What counts as “interdisciplinary” for a field long associated with interdisciplinarity, for better or worse?

We are equally interested in cautions about digitization’s unintended consequences. How do Americanists view the possibilities of the digital in education? Do they envision significant shifts in the balance of funding and institutional settings caused by digitized sources and tools?

We are interested as well in the yield of digital research for Americanists in Europe, now that several major projects are running their course. What new results did digital research deliver?

Finally, we also invite proposals from scholars outside of “American Studies” proper—for instance, scholars of European history and literature who have backed their way into U.S. social, political, economic, cultural, intellectual, and literary history. What academic narratives of America inform their work? What old or new ideas from American Studies—keywords, clichés, slogans—have been most useful or most distracting? How did digital sources help them achieve their goals?

In this conference we hope to learn more about these questions and find inspiration in these keynote lectures:

Antal van den Bosch (Radboud University Nijmegen), Digital Humanities Data: Contradiction or the New Frontier?

John Corrigan (Florida State University), Digital Data and the Methodology of American Studies

Miriam Posner (UCLA), Fostering a Digital Humanities Project within the American Studies Paradigm

Examples of relevant panels include, but are not limited to:

• American Studies research using digital sources and/or tools
• Should I go digital, or rather not? The perks of a non-digital oasis
• How to transfer an analog project to a digital one
• The possibilities of multi- and interdisciplinary research
• The changing contents of and accessibility to collections
• Integrating space, image, text, and sound for American Studies research
• Combining the digital and the analog in research and/or teaching
• Involving students in digital projects
• Lessons from the previous computer revolution (historiography)

The conference invites proposals (300 words plus CVs) for workshops, presentations, models, that fit either the methodological or the theoretical themes.

Participants who seek advice how to enrich/combine/extend their analog projects with digital applications, are more than welcome to submit a project as well. A forum of experts will offer feedback and recommendations.

Please, mail your submission to nasabestuur@gmail.com before June 1, 2016.

The conference will be held at the Roosevelt Study Center, Abdij 8, Middelburg, the Netherlands. The conference fee is € 50 for two days, including lunches and coffee/tea and a reception.

The organizing committee consists of:

George Blaustein, University of Amsterdam

Hans Krabbendam, Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg

Frank Mehring, Radboud University Nijmegen

Lisanne Walma, Utrecht University